In 1976, I went to jail to celebrate the Fourth of July

I am an unabashed lover of the Fourth of July. I always have been. In 1992 I spent the holiday in jail trying to protect a confidential source. That wasn’t my favorite Fourth, though you’ll forgive my hubris if I think it was my most patriotic. My favorite Independence Day was the bicentennial. I also went to jail that year. Sort of. 

My love for the Fourth comes from my grandfather, who emigrated to this country from Lebanon. He was a proud American. Each year he celebrated this country by claiming it was “always filled with possibilities.” We had a family barbecue and fireworks. After he passed, my dad continued the tradition.

Nothing in my experience as a child compared to the family fireworks display. We lived next door to a police officer who often helped dad produce our summer extravaganza. One year, my six-year-old brother unceremoniously dumped some gasoline on a large pile of “duds” and then tossed in a lit match “for fun.” Dad had to save him from the ensuing explosion and took a skyrocket across his chest. It left a scorched black mark on his orange rayon shirt that made him look like a superhero. No other harm befell him or my little brother. At nine, I was impressed with my father’s athleticism as he scooped up my little brother during the pyrotechnics, as well as the colorful chaos itself.

Fireworks were illegal in Kentucky, but every year my dad made the six-hour trek to Nashville and back, where every entertaining explosive known to man could be bought in as many varieties and quantities as your heart desired and your pocketbook could afford.

By 1976, mom and dad had split, and as the bicentennial approached, it looked like I wouldn’t get to see the usual wild display of pyrotechnics and potential loss of limbs. Then, one day, while cleaning out my mom’s 1970 blue Chevy Impala, I had an epiphany. The trunk was massive. In later years, my friends and I would sneak two to four people into the drive-in theater utilizing the trunk space. Many a teenage love affair began or ended there. But on that day, I imagined that trunk filled with fireworks. Being a healthy capitalist, I immediately started taking orders from schoolmates. I figured I could make a small mint by driving to my dad’s favorite all-night firework stand and, for a reasonable fee, providing my friends with some patriotic explosives. There was only one problem with my perfect plan: At 15, I wasn’t old enough to drive.

That didn’t stop me. One night, after my mom went to sleep, I made the trip to Nashville, purchased the fireworks and headed for home. I’d be back before mom woke up, I told myself. She’d never know. Then, outside of Shepherdsville, Kentucky, on Interstate 65 at approximately 4:27 a.m. on June 23, 1976, I saw “rollers” behind me. The red light and a siren from a cop. I was confused. The speed limit was 55. I was doing just 62. 

I promptly pulled over. The officer walked up to my idling Impala and informed me that my left taillight was out. I had probably damaged it when loading fireworks. 

“Gee, I didn’t know,” I said with a smile.

“Well, you know if I was a state trooper, I’d probably give you a ticket. But I’m going to let you go with a warning.”

“Thank you, officer,” I replied.

“Just let me see your license and registration, son,” he said calmly.

I swallowed. “I haven’t got one, sir.”

He looked at me, confused. “What?”

“I’m just 15. I don’t have one.” 

I didn’t know what else to say. It wasn’t a good story, but at least it was the truth.

“Boy, don’t you know you gotta be 16-years-old to operate a motor vehicle in the Commonwealth of Kentucky?” he asked.

I sensed an opportunity. “No sir, I didn’t,” I said. “But I’ll check on that as soon I get home.”

Thirty minutes later, I was in the 1970s version of Sheriff Andy Taylor’s office from ”The Andy Griffith Show.” I was worried — but not about my legal problems. More than anything else, I was concerned about my haul. The cops towed my mother’s car into an impound lot, and I was sure they’d found and confiscated the fireworks. All I could think was that some lucky corrupt cop, like our neighbor, was going to benefit from my labor, and I’d be broke for the rest of my life. The quarterback on our football team had purchased $50 worth. I had even sold some to a teacher. I was screwed. 

Mom had to get a friend to drive her to meet me at court that morning. She was near tears. I was sure it was out of anger. The aging judge sounded stern and angry, but he let me off with a warning: If I was caught driving again before I turned 16, he’d make sure I was 18 before I could legally drive. I was still worried about what had happened to the fireworks, and I squirmed as we picked up the car at the impound lot and mom drove the 30 miles home.

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When we got home, dad was waiting. Since my parents had split, he wasn’t around much, but this got his attention. He kept me outside, telling mom he wanted to talk to me. “Someone needs to,” she said. Dad was aghast. He couldn’t believe what I had done. He asked me what the hell I was doing driving around on I-65 outside of Shepherdsville at 4:30 a.m. 

I came clean and told Pop the whole story, selling it under the guise of patriotism — and with three-part harmony and a harmonica. He frowned. “How much do you plan to make on this little endeavor?” he asked. When I told him, he smiled and gave a slight whistle. “Are they still in the car?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you have the keys?”

I did. I did have the keys. My father rolled his eyes.

“Your mother’s inside. Open the trunk,” he commanded.

I did and nearly passed out. To my surprise not one skyrocket, bottle rocket or firecracker was missing. The cops never opened the trunk. Dad smiled. I smiled. My friends and I were going to have a great bicentennial. Dad immediately made me give mom $40 for gas and the impound charge for her car. I also had to come clean with mom on what I did. I, of course, stressed the patriotic nature of my efforts and how all my friends would benefit from my labor. 

Then dad took me to breakfast. I paid, and then he took me grocery shopping. Part of my penance was buying $50 worth of groceries for the house. It was the best Fourth of July ever. For the first time in four years, mom, dad and all of us kids were together. 

Unity, to make a long story longer, was in the air that year — and not just because my separated parents were bonding over their juvenile delinquent son. Now, I have the strange romantic notion that, for the briefest of moments, Americans joined hands and celebrated 200 years of an unrealized but longed for dream: Liberty and justice for all. Vietnam was over. Richard Nixon was over. We had survived a horrible eight years living with death and injustice on our doorstep, and a crooked lunatic as president. We all smiled.

That year, a million people gathered on the National Mall to witness an historic fireworks display, while we, in our little corner of the world, enjoyed ours. We cheered our national ideals, and the nation seemed unified in trying to live up to them. That summer we celebrated Congress passing the Government in the Sunshine Act, which required federal agencies to conduct public meetings, and the Toxic Substances Control Act, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate hazardous chemicals. Dad, using the words of his father, told me America was always a place with “unlimited possibilities.”  

Who was I to argue? Viking I and Viking II landed on Mars. NASA rolled out the space shuttle “Enterprise,” and I drove to Nashville and back with a trunk load of fireworks, bought the family groceries and got my parents back together — albeit briefly. 

Perhaps I look back at that time with rose-colored glasses. But this year we celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial. I still have hope, but it’s not the same hope we had when Nixon was driven from office by his fellow Republicans. It isn’t the joy of 1976. 

During a talk this week at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Vice President JD Vance stated that Watergate would only be a “12-hour news story” in today’s media environment, adding he believed the “deep state” was responsible for Nixon’s downfall. 

His comments were both startling and damning. Trump and his regime are so grotesquely corrupt that the illegal activities of the Nixon years now seem to Vance like the exploits of a 15-year-old buying illegal fireworks. Our millennial veep is ignorant of our own history.

Forty government officials and members of Nixon’s administration were indicted or jailed in connection with Watergate, and 48 individuals were ultimately convicted of crimes. Among those imprisoned were the president’s top White House aides, his attorney general and his personal legal counsel.

Now there’s Donald Trump. This week it was reported the president has increased his personal fortune by $2.2 billion since coming back into office. He lied on Wednesday when he said he had placed his holdings in a blind trust and had no idea how much he’s making because he doesn’t talk to those running his companies. Trump turned over his assets to his two sons. They were standing behind him on the tarmac outside of Air Force One when he said it. 

Harry Truman, our 33rd president, once wrote that it was wrong to “commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency.” Our 47th apparently finds it to be his highest calling.

1976 was an odd year. I remember that John Wayne’s last movie, “The Shootist,” played at the same theater as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

2026 is even odder. Our president is a demented crook literally making billions off his presidency while his millennial veep tries to convince everyone it’s all okay. We’re in a war that was started for reasons that still haven’t been explained while our country deports “low-wage foreigners,” claiming that doing so is a Christian act.

Let me be blunt: If I were 15 again, I wouldn’t drive my mother’s car to Nashville and purchase fireworks to celebrate this Fourth of July. But I would still go to jail to protest my government’s illegal actions.